INFORMATION AND COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES

The information revolution is sweeping through our economy. No company can escape its effects. Dramatic reductions in the cost obtaining, processing, and transmitting information are changing the way we do business.  Today, information technology must be conceived of broadly to encompass the information that business create and use as well as a wide spectrum of increasingly convergent and linked technologies that process the information. Apart from providing reliable and excellent IT services, IT should provide innovative solutions to business challenges. It is because, IT is no longer about supporting or automating a business but more about innovating, improving, and reinventing it.

A strategic information system is any information system that uses IT to help an organization gain a competitive advantage, reduce a competitive advantage or meet other strategic enterprise objectives. Competitive advantage usually occurs when an organization develops an attributes that allow it to outperform its competitors. These attributes can include access to natural resources or access to highly trained and skilled personnel human resources.

There are some ways to implement the basic strategies. Firstly, IT can help to reduce the cost of business processes and lower the costs of customers or suppliers like canon. It have built a low-cost copier assembly process from the software that controls parts inventory and selection. It is because the costs of documenting each companys participation are high.  The other strategies is differentiate products and services in our company with developing of new IT features. As a result, it can reduce the differentiation advantages between of the competitors. Next is we should think innovatively which is create a new products and services that include IT components to make radical changes to business processes with IT. As a result, it will cut costs, improve more quality, more efficient to satisfied the market demand. To make our company more strong and known in the world, we should develop alliances or business partners.

The important thing is a company should evaluate the existing and potential information intensity of the products and processes of its business units. So, i can conclude that information technology can help in the strategy implementation process. By using information systems, companies can measure their activities more precisely and help motivate managers to implement strategies successfully. The technology has given the organization the potential for forging sharp new tools that can produce lasting gains in market share. 

(400 words)

REFERENCES

Michael E. Porter and Victor E. Millar, How Information Gives You Competitive Advantage, July-August 1985, pg 9.